


All Tangled Up Like Balls Of String

by myfavoriteismike



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I'm not actually sure I'm using that tag correctly, M/M, Slow Build, Time Loop, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:45:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myfavoriteismike/pseuds/myfavoriteismike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Newton Geiszler meets Hermann Gottlieb is at a conference in Washington. The first kaiju had made land in 2013, and the Mark-1 Jaegars had been deployed a little more than a year later. Newt is nineteen and halfway through getting his fourth doctorate, studying the kaiju with what others deem indecent enthusiasm. Hermann is twenty-two and part of the development team for the Mark-2s. They should have clicked immediately, saved the world, and spent the rest of their lives bickering over things like what the best method of teaching advanced science and mathematics to college students was, but that's not what happens at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I feel like I should warn you right off the bat: I do not know the extended canon for this 'verse. I have seen the movie, that's it. I did a little bit of poking around in the wiki before I started writing this, but for the most part found the backstory for these two characters to be... boring. Sorry to anyone who was potentially excited to read this and loves the "exchanging letters for three years, then they meet and hate each other" thing. Also apologies to anyone who loves the idea of Newt as a professor before the war, anybody who believes in the existence of Vanessa Gottlieb, or anyone who wants to hear extended information about actual science and not just half-assed word-mincing. These are not things you will find here. I have taken liberties LIKE WHOA in writing this fic. That is all.

The first time Newton Geiszler meets Hermann Gottlieb is at a conference in Washington. The first kaiju had made land in 2013, and the Mark-1 Jaegers had been deployed a little more than a year later. Newt is nineteen and halfway through getting his fourth doctorate, studying the kaiju with what others deem indecent enthusiasm. Hermann is twenty-two and part of the development team for the Mark-2s. They should have clicked immediately, saved the world, and spent the rest of their lives bickering over things like what the best method of teaching advanced science and mathematics to college students was, but that's not what happens at all.  
\------  
Newt leaned against the sink in the men's room, staring at his face in the mirror. He took a deep breath, in through the nose and out through the mouth, trying to steel himself for what was to come. He was by no means the highest authority on the kaiju, but the hypothesis about the blood had been his, and as such it was his responsibility to present his theory to a room full of people for them to do with the information what they would. There were experts from all over the world and in a range of fields at that conference: biomechanics, psychologists, zenobiologists, and many more. Newt hoped that after everybody finished speaking for the day, he would be able to introduce himself to some of these people, maybe put in a good word for himself so that when he finishes up this last bit of education (which really, he thought often, he could be teaching himself if he had a bit more time) he will be able to get a place on the west coast with direct access to fresh specimens instead of the rare bit of skin or bone marrow preserved in ammonia and shipped across the country to his professors. With a final deep breath and a "you can do this" wink in the mirror, he left the bathroom and took his seat near the front of the conference room, off to the left of the speaker's podium. 

There was a smattering of applause as a man ascended the stage. Newt noticed that he walked with a cane and a limp, and was dressed in the frumpiest old man clothes he'd ever seen, even though this guy couldn't have more than thirty. He cleared his throat and began to speak in a grating sort of mutter, firing off words at a hundred miles and hour and gesturing to a powerpoint projection that had been lowered onto the wall behind him. 

Newt only half paid attention, not really interested in the updates that need to be made to the machines if the Jaegers were going to continue being a viable defense strategy. The man didn't seem to take the kaiju themselves into account. How the hell were they supposed to defend against an enemy they knew next to nothing about? Sure, it's great to be able to throw giant robots at the giant aliens, but it would make much more sense to know the enemy and strategize around that than to just attack and hope for the best. Newt said as much when the man ended his talk by asking for questions. 

There was silence in the room as Newt felt hundreds of experts' eyes on him. The man at the podium gave him a once-over, eyes flickering down to his skinny jeans and sneakers and sneering. "And who exactly are you?" 

Newt stared him down. "Newt Geiszler. PhDs in comparative biomechanics, paleobiology, astrobiology, and neuroethology. I mean, almost, they say I should be done by May of next year but honestly I bet I can get it finished by this-"

"Well, Dr Geiszler, I see that you are scheduled to present your findings at eleven-hundred hours, which by my watch isn't for another thirty minutes. At that time I'm sure we will all be delighted to hear more about the kaiju themselves," he sneered again, and Newt experienced the sudden urge to go up onstage and hit him, "but my job here is to brief these people on the Mark-2s. Perhaps, if you have any specific problem with my methodology, we can meet later in the day, but for now I would prefer to answer specific questions about the design of the Jaegers." He turned away from Newt with a self-satisfied little smirk and the desire to hit him came back. Newt considered standing up and confronting the man right then and there, but before he can do so someone farther back in the room had started asking about the housing for the nuclear reactors and the man's attention was on her. 

Newt gave his presentation half an hour later, and he couldn't help but notice that the majority of the room was giving him the same dubious look he was probably giving throughout the man's presentation. Newt plowed on anyway, reminding himself that this is needed information and that it's his approach rather than his findings that they are critical of. Well, let them be, he thought with a sigh. It was never very likely that he'd get a spot near the head of the research anyway. 

\------

"Dr Geiszler." Newt started and nearly choked on his coke as the man from earlier approached him, his expression neutral.  
"Call me Newt. We're on lunch and besides, only my mother calls me doctor." Newt said, hoping to get a smile from the man. His expression didn't change. "I'm sorry, I missed your name when you were presenting."

"Hermann Gottlieb. Classical and quantum mechanics, since that seems to be your preferred method of introduction." he sniffed. 

"And you build robots with that? Dude."

"I do not build them, I merely design them."

"Still. Dude." 

"Would you kindly stop saying that?" 

"If you wanna be all stuffy, that's fine, but this is a stuff-free zone so... why'd you come talk to me anyway? I didn't exactly get the impression you approve of me." Newt asked, cramming a finger sandwich into his mouth. Hermann watched with distaste.

"I came to inquire as to what your plans were after you finish your study."

"I gotta go to the west coast and hope for the best, is what it's lookin' like. Can't very well learn anything more about aliens without actually seeing the aliens." Newt said around the sandwich. "It's easier to get your hands on specimens at the schools, so I guess I'll apply for a teaching gig at Stanford. UC Berkeley, maybe. Why'd'you ask?" 

Hermann scowled, shuffling his weight to his left leg. "I have been instructed to offer you a position, if you are so amenable."

"At Berkeley?"

"No, imbecile, in one of the shatterdomes. I am part of the research and development department for the Jaeger program and those that I report to wish me to diversify those I bring in. They seem to think that having all mathematical minds is somewhat limiting to our potential output." His face twisted and Newt could tell that Hermann disagreed with this assessment and probably with the decision to bring Newt into his team. 

But it didn't matter. He was being offered a place at the front. Not just on the Rim, at the front. "Holy shit man, are you serious?" 

"Would I be talking to you if I were not?" 

"You ARE serious." 

"Unfortunately." 

Newt switched his coke to his left hand and shook Hermann's enthusiastically. "This is so great. This is awesome. Thanks so much, Hermann- I see that you don't particularly like me but like, wow-"

"Yes, well..." Hermann stared at their hands as though hoping that he could somehow disinfect his skin from coming into contact with Newt's. Newt couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed at the man; sure, he was grumpy and curmudgeony and had lame taste in clothes, but he'd offered Newt a spot in the shatterdomes. Even if he was only the bearer of good news, he was welcome.

"So like, when do you want me there and how do I get that settled? Are there people I have to call, or...?"

"I will be in contact over the next several months." He looked around the room, focusing his glance on a pair of Canadian climate specialists.

"I look forward to it! Hey, thanks again!"

"If it were up to me we would not be having this conversation." he said absently, adjusting the strap on his shoulder bag. "Oh, and Dr Geiszler?"

"Yeah?"

"Please do not ever call me by my first name again. We have titles for a reason." He turned away and headed towards the Canadians.  
Newt stared after him, then shook his head. Why should he let the stuffy guy's attitude spoil this for him? He was going to a shatterdome. He was gonna get to do groundbreaking research with top-of-the-line equipment and the smartest of the smart people. And yeah, he was probably gonna help save the world from aliens. "Always knew you'd be a rockstar." Newt muttered to himself, grinning as he pulled out his phone to see if there was any way he could squeeze a few hours of neuroethology into his schedule for this evening. 

\------

The next two months were a whirlwind for Newt. He finished up his research for his last PhD and submitted his dissertation, grumbling the whole time about the pointless busywork and inwardly singing hallelujah that he'd been spared the continued life of academia that working at Stanford or Berkeley would have entailed. He packed up his tiny apartment into two cardboard boxes and a backpack and got on a plane to Hong Kong. Well, not directly to Hong Kong, he had a layover in France first... Was it France? Newt couldn't really remember. He supposed it didn't matter, he'd land where he landed and take the connecting flight that had been booked for him. 

\------

Many hours later Newt was standing waiting for his cardboard boxes to come around on the luggage carousel, headphones on and foot tapping. He had no idea where he was supposed to go now. Hermann's last email had said someone would be at the airport to pick him up and at the time he had thought that was ridiculous, he was a grown man with four doctorates, be could navigate a city on his own. But now that he was here he was nervous. What if he got lost? What if some cab driver murdered him and stole his stuff? What if there was an attack while he was on the way across the city? Dammit Newt, calm down, he said to himself. Everything would be fine, he would just follow the directions Hermann had emailed him and he'd be to the shatterdome in no time. 

His boxes came forward on the carousel and he stepped forward to get them, but before he could pick them up he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

"Hey, chill. You're Dr Geiszler, right?" said the man, holding up his arms as Newt whirled to face him. 

"Yeah. Who're you?" Newt glanced him over, taking in his suspenders and bow tie and his slicked up hair.

"Name's Tendo Choi. Gottlieb sent me to pick you up." He gestured to the cardboard boxes. "Want me to get one of those?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks." Newt tried to hand Tendo a box without setting down his own and dropped both of them. "Ah shit." He bent down and picked one of the boxes back up, pushing the other towards Tendo. "Hermann sent you to get me?" 

"You two are on a first name basis?" Tendo looked impressed and something else Newt couldn't place. 

"Well, not really, he actually explicitly told me to refer to him by his title when we met, but you know." Newt shrugged. "Is he always like that?"

"Grumpy?" Tendo gave a single dry chuckle. "Yeah, pretty much."

"What's wrong with him?"

"Honestly, I don't think he knows. Just got a stick up his ass, I guess. But it's all good. We mostly leave him to do his thing and he leaves us to do ours." Tendo said, starting to walk towards the sliding glass doors to the taxi bay. 

"And what's your thing?" Newt hurried to keep up with Tendo's longer strides. 

"I'm an engineer. Schoenfeld and Lightcap might've designed the Jaegers, but I get to actually build 'em and damn if I don't think I got the sweeter gig." He grinned, flashing even white teeth at Newt. 

"I thought Hermann designed the Jaegers." Newt frowned as they slid into the backseat of a cab.

Tendo laughed. "Damn, boy, you been livin' under a rock? Nah, Jasper Schoenfeld and Caitlin Lightcap designed the Jaegers. Gottlieb's old man helped in some way as well, nobody's really sure what went down there but it was bad if you ask me. Gottlieb's some kind of math genius, runs statistical models and checks everybody's calculations. He can be real snobby about it, too." 

"What do I do ?"

"Whatever it is you do best, I'd assume, or the marshall wouldn't've bothered having you shipped here." Tendo pulled out a knife from his pants pocket and started picking at his nails with it.

Whatever it was he did best. What he did best was look at kaiju remnants. Out here, on the Rim and so close to the Breach, he'd be sure to get his hands on those no problem. Newt couldn't stop the giant grin spreading across his face as he looked out the window at the rapidly approaching wharf. This was gonna be great.

\------

Tendo left Newt and his boxes just inside the dome, apologizing for having to butt out, he needed to get some work done today or the Marshall would dock his pay, he snorted. Newt stood in front of the elevator for a full minute, wondering where he was supposed to go, before a very tall man in a navy blue suit rounded the corner and came up to him. 

"Dr Geiszler?"

"Newt. Call me Newt." Newt stuck out the hand that wasn't cradling his boxes. The man shook it once, his expression stern.

"I'm Marshall Pentecost. This is my dome and my project and I brought you here to work for me and not with me, is that clear? There will be no first name basis between us, Dr Geiszler." 

"Right. Okay. Sorry." Newt dropped his gaze to the floor, suddenly anxious. 

"Please follow me." the Marshall said more kindly, and Newt hurried to keep up with him as he walked down the long curving corridors. They stopped in front of a room with a thick metal door, with the kind of crank handle that made Newt think of submarines. "This is yours. I'm afraid we've overstretched our living space at the moment, so you'll be bunking with someone until such a time as we determine which of you will stay and which will go. Put your boxes inside and come with me."

Newt did as he was told, wondering what exactly Pentecost meant about 'which of you will stay'.

Maybe he'd been brought here as like a test run. Maybe they were gonna decide who got to work at the domes and then send the others back home. Or maybe he meant they were gonna feed some of them to the kaiju. Maybe they kept one chained up just under the surface of the water; a category I or II would just fit under the dome. How cool would that be? Obviously not the being eaten part, but what if they had a live kaiju here to study? 

Newt hadn't been paying attention to where they were going but suddenly they were standing in front of the elevator. "Take it all the way down. The lab you will be working in is on the lowest level. Good day, Dr Geiszler." 

Pentecost stalked off, and Newt, with a thick swallow, stepped into the elevator and punched the button for the lowest level and rocked on the balls of his feet as the doors closed and it descended. 

\------

Newt found out over the next several hours everything he needed to know about working at a shatterdome, and probably more. There were three other kaiju specialists, with doctorates in a number of different things (although, Newt noticed, none who had as many as he did) sharing his lab and one of them was sharing his room. Apparently they were all being monitored and at the end of an unspecified amount of time it was gonna be decided who was staying here (if any of them) and who was going to the other domes. Newt's roommate complained loudly that it didn't make any sense to split them up; surely they'd get more work done working together? He said as much to Newt as they got ready for bed that evening. And that, Newt thought, is perfect evidence that we do need to be split up. Like, seriously, Newt had never in his life found working with others to be helpful to him in any way. Discoveries were made by one person and sometimes there was another person there and they'd share the credit, but usually that other person was more distracting than helpful. That was just the way these things worked. 

\------

Newt spent the first couple of months at the dome studying all the specimens he could get his hands on. He'd never actually gotten to work with kaiju remains before. A fragment of bone here, a few inches of skin there, but never whole organs, never anything this fascinating. 

And then he was called into Pentecost's office. 

"I've decided who will be relocated." the Marshall said, not looking up from the report on his desk. 

"I see." Newt said, feeling his pulse speed up. Oh god, what if he got sent to Anchorage? Cold and dark and the middle of nowhere was not Newt's style at all, and besides, that was as far away from the Breach as a dome could be and he'd have an awful time getting new organs to work with. What if-

"You will be pleased to hear that your room is now your own." Pentecost frowned down at the paper and underlined something with pen. 

"Oh!" Newt got to stay after all. "So Joshua's leaving?"

"And Quinn Anderson. You and Dr Black will continue on here, and Dr Anderson and Dr Phillips will be relocated to Anchorage and Sydney, respectively." 

Newt stood there, relief flooding through him. If any of them was gonna stay he would have preferred it to be Angela. She appreciated that working towards common goals and on similar tasks did not equal hovering over each other. Also, she liked his taste in music. 

"That will be all, Dr Geiszler." Pentecost still didn't look up from the report. 

"Right. Thanks, Marshall." Newt left the room and headed back to what he had begun to think of as the k-science lab. 

\------

The more Newt studied the kaiju the less he felt like he actually knew what was going on with them. They had two brains like paleontologists used to think dinosaurs had, but the secondary brain seemed to be responsible for everything going on in the kaijus' bodies. Nobody had ever gotten a direct look at the primary brains, actually, because the skulls were too think to drill through and there really was no other way to extract a brain whole than to cut the top of the skull off. Their blood was actually so highly acidic that it would eat through their veins and dissolve their tissue, but only after they were dead. Some of them could spit acid with no apparent ill effects which made Newt wonder if maybe the blood itself wasn't what was acidic. 

He started spending every waking moment in the lab, putting off sleep to do extra poking- because really, at this point he couldn't call it research, that implied he knew what he was looking for. Angela was starting to give him weird looks when she came into the lab at eight in the morning to find that he hadn't left the night before. 

But it wasn't until one day when he was walking through the hall to the showers and he heard one of the Wei trriplets whisper to the others the words "kaiju groupie" that he realized they all thought something was wrong with him. Newt stared after the trio as they passed him, bewildered. He was doing his job. This was important work. It wasn't like anybody else was discovering ways of neutralizing the acidity of the blood so that proper experimentation could be done. It wasn't like he wasn't contributing to this war effort in monumental ways or anything. God, if they thought he was so weird why didn't they try their hand at his job, see how long they could do it before admitting that really, the kaiju were interesting creatures. He shook his head and continued to the shower.

\------

Three years went by. Newt invented a machine that extracted stuff from the various kaiju gland samples for analysis. He modified an MRI to better help him scan kaiju specimens. Angela left one day and Newt hardly noticed she'd gone; it wasn't until he was called up to Pentecost's office that he consciously registered her absence.

"Dr Geiszler, are you aware of the circumstances surrounding Dr Black's departure?"

"No sir, should I be?" Newt was impatient. He had been right in the middle of a very important analysis when Tendo's voice announced over the comm that Pentecost wanted to see him. 

"I would think, given that you have spent the last three years in her company, you would have at least minimal interest in her as a colleague." Pentecost sighed. "Dr Geiszler, I think you need a break. I'm authorizing you to take a week of paid leave."

"What?! Sir, you know I can't do that! There's a new shipment coming in tomorrow and if I don't get started on the heart soon the blood'll start to break it down-"

"I will see to it that someone has the specimens preserved for you when you return." Pentecost said firmly. 

"But-"

Pentecost shook his head. "Look at yourself. You can't have slept more than four hours altogether this week. You're living on coffee and pastries. I know for a fact that you haven't left that lab for thirty six hours. You're taking a week of leave and that's that." 

"With all due respect sir, you couldn't possibly know any of those things because I happen to know that the cameras don't go down to the lower level." Newt nodded, triumphant.

"That is correct. Dr Gottlieb has been checking on you for me for the past several days."

Newt blinked. Hermann had been down to k-science? But Newt hadn't seen him there. Had it gotten that bad that he was oblivious to everything around him?

"Yes, Dr Geiszler, it's gotten that bad. He was down to check on you just this morning. He reported that you were elbow-deep in a stomach and talking to yourself in very fast German." That was true, at any rate... Newt HAD been dissecting a stomach this morning, and he did have a habit of talking to himself while he worked. But how could he have not noticed Hermann? He sunk into the chair in front of Pentecost's desk, scrubbing at his eyes behind his glasses. 

"Take a week, Newton. I will personally see to it that you get a flight back to the US tonight." Pentecost said, his tone reassuring. Newt didn't feel reassured. 

\------

Twelve hours later Newt was stepping off of a plane and into a taxi in Madison. Pentecost had rented him a little cabin in the upper peninsula and ordered him not to return to the shatterdome for at least a week. Newt had to admit to himself, as he watched the suburbs of Madison fade into the flat expanse of south-central Wisconsin, that he was very, very tired. A week might do him some good, he thought as he leaned his head against the window. 

\------

Three days later he wasn't so sure. In fact, he was going out of his mind with boredom. How did people DO this? Pentecost could have at least had the decency to put him down somewhere with stuff to do. There was only so long you could stare at a lake. It was funny, because Newt knew that once upon a time he'd have loved this kind of vacation, but he was a different person than he'd been then and this was boring beyond belief now. Now Vegas, that was something he could get behind. And, it occurred to Newt, why the hell couldn't he? He had plenty of cash. He'd drive back to Madison and catch a plane to Nevada, and at the end of his week of enforced rest fly back to Hong Kong. 

Five days later he was walking back into the dome amidst gasps and whispers as people stared at his arm, where the latest category III, Yamarashi, was now tattooed. 

\------

Newt was humming along to the radio, cutting open a lung, when he heard someone clear their throat by the door. He spun around and frowned. 

"Oh, it's you." he said to Hermann, who clenched his jaw and stared defiantly back. 

"Enjoy your vacation?" he asked, eyes wandering to Newt's rolled up sleeves and then to his left forearm.

"As a matter of fact, yes. Did you enjoy spying on me for Pentecost?"

Hermann rolled his eyes, tilting his head. "Angela Black expressed concerns to me shortly before departing, I was merely-"

"Spying on me for Pentecost." 

"It may please you to hear that the Marshall has left. You will be free to pursue your destructive habits once again." Hermann said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Newt looked up, setting down his scalpel. "Wait, what? Pentecost left? Where'd he go, I thought he was in charge here."

"He is. But there's been a problem in Anchorage and he's gone to take temporary command there."

"What kind of problem?"

"The team that piloted that Jaeger last week, the Becket boys, are showing unusual post-drift symptoms. He's gone to supervise whatever it is that they do about these things. Mr Choi went with him."

"What, you don't know what they do about 'these things'?" Newt made his voice as pompous as possible on those last two words.

Hermann drew himself up to his full height (not much taller than Newt, actually, and that was saying something) and squared his shoulders. "I am a mathematician. I make models and predictions and algorithms for the mechanics of the Jaegers. The drift is not my area of expertise." 

"Yeah, whatever man. Who's in charge while Pentecost's gone?" Newt asked, picking up his scalpel again.

"A man named Greer. I am scientific liaison, as it seems he has only a military background." 

Newt shrugged, still annoyed. "You have fun with that." 

\------

The Marshall, as it turned out, was gone for a very long time. None of them saw him again until 2020, after Gipsy Danger lost Yancy Becket. 

Hermann, as it turned out, was terrible at being in charge during that time. Or at least it seemed that way to Newt. He was constantly being called up to Hermann's office to tell him what his reports meant exactly, as though Newt had written them badly (which Hermann insisted on more than one occasion that he had). "Look, I'm sorry you're not a biologist but I really can't explain this in any simpler terms." Newt gestured to his latest report, detailing his discovery of a nerve cluster that the more recent kaiju had in their eyes that, as far as Newt could tell, allowed them to sense heat fluctuations. This was really bad news, actually, because it meant that the upgrades to make the jaegars invisible were now worthless. 

"Well try to do so, because if I can't understand this then the politicians that fund us certainly won't." he snapped. Then he sighed, looking at Newt with something close to pity. "Do you not understand our situation? Unless we continue providing proof that we are useful, we will be cut out of this program. It will be the Jaeger pilots and the engineers that maintain the suits, nothing more. We will lose this war, Newton. You say the kaiju are adapting. We cannot continue to adapt to match them with only pilots and engineers. You must do better than this." He pushed the report back across the desk. 

Newt stared as Hermann pushed his glasses off his nose and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. "You called me Newton." 

"You have been calling me by my first name since the day we met. There is-"

"You hate it when we use first names." 

Hermann looked at him wearily. "Go back to work, please." 

Newt nodded, bounding up and picking up the stack of papers. He hurried back to the lab, turning over and over in his mind those two syllables. It must be stress, he concluded, as he settled down to reword his report into a form that the politicians would find useful. 

\------

It all ended up going to hell, anyway. Someone somewhere decided that the Jaeger program was too expensive and that it made more sense to build a wall around the Rim. Of course, nearly everyone thought this was garbage, but nobody seemed as angry about it as Hermann. Newt was used to seeing the man grumpy and snappish, it came with the territory of being both the head of the statistical research department and the guy who had to explain everything that went on here to the military guy in charge on top of his natural disposition. But this was way worse than that. This was like, murderous anger. Newt found himself growing concerned about the stubborn mathematician, and one evening found himself banging on Hermann's bunk room door. 

"Herm! Open up, I need to talk to you!" he demanded. 

Hermann opened the door and stared down at Newt, his eyes tired. "What is it, Newton?"

"Okay, so I get that you're under a lot of stress, being the science guy to the not-sciency commander in addition to being in charge of your own room full of geniuses, but seriously. Something's up. Spill." Newt crossed his arms, trying to indicate that he wasn't gonna leave until Hermann explained himself.

Hermann sighed and backed up to let Newt into the room. He gestured to an armchair in the corner, and Newt sank into it, watching as Hermann situated himself on the bed. 

"Surely you must know by now that they are cutting all funding for the Jaeger program?"

"Of course I know that, everybody knows that. Because some dumbass thinks a wall will protect us better than an army of giant robots."  
"Quite. That, ah, dumbass is my... father." 

Newt's eyes widened. "Oh shit, Hermann, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Yes you did, and don't apologize, I agree with you." he snapped, and Newt had to suppress a grin at Hermann's shift back to his normal mannerisms. "Unfortunately the politicians are more inclined to agree with the man who first proposed the idea of Jaegers than with his son who actually helped to design and build them." His voice cracked and Newt started to panic. 

"Hermann, you know like, I want to help, but I don't think I'm equipped to deal with you if you start crying so like-"

"Calm yourself, I'm perfectly fine." Hermann said, taking a deep, shaking breath and then standing up. "As it is, the rest of my, what did you say, 'room full of geniuses' is being sent off. We simply cannot afford to keep all the lights running. I will be moving my more necessary equipment into your lab tomorrow."

"Whoa, hold up." Newt's mind reeled. This was not good. "WHAT'S happening?" Newt also stood up. 

"The rest of my team will no longer be paid for and as such can no longer afford to stay here. They will be returning to wherever it is that they came from. The equipment in our lab is also fairly expensive to keep on, so I will be cutting the power to the non-essentials and transferring the rest to the basement lab."

"But-"

"Newton do you think I have any desire to watch you cut up kaiju parts every day until the world ends?" he snapped. "This is the only option we have. I am sorry it isn't amenable to you, but rest assured, I am not any happier about it." He opened the door and jerked his thumb out into the hall, gesturing for Newt to go. 

\------

Hermann moved into Newt's lab, and they screamed and bickered and snarled at each other, day in and day out. They got a surprising amount of work done despite this. Hermann tweaked the formula to predict the frequency of kaiju attacks, and it proved to be startlingly accurate. Kaiju would be coming at a rate of around one a week by the end of the month, and a double event was likely to happen not long after that. Newt discovered that, although the kaiju were all different in appearance, they all had very, very similar DNA. He set up a sequencer to tell him just how similar, but it would take at least a month for it to yield any results. 

Meanwhile, domes began to close all over the Rim. Anchorage went first, and Newt hoped (mostly for Hermann's sake, the man had enough to worry about without having to run everything he did past Greer) that Pentecost would come back. But he didn't; there were rumors that Pentecost was amassing some kind of army for one final stand somewhere. Newt hoped to god those rumors were true, because they were doomed if they just let the coastal wall plan go forward. 

And then Mako Mori came back from the academy. Newt hadn't seen her since she was about fourteen and following her adoptive father around the halls during the evening. She and Tendo Choi set about restoring an old Jaeger down in the receiving bay, which Newt thought boded well for the "Pentecost is amassing an army" theory. 

\------

There was an attack on the coastal wall in Sydney. A Jaeger called Striker Eureka took it down, and a couple of days later, that Jaeger and its pilots were living in the Hong Kong dome. Two Russians brought their Jaeger, Cherno Alpha, and a nuclear bomb. Hermann's predictive model continued to be accurate. Newt's DNA sequencing program completed and spat out the shocking but apparently useless information that the kaiju were clones. And finally, finally, Pentecost returned. 

He'd brought the surviving Becket with him. They were gonna try to blow up the breach. Newt thought this was a bad plan- after all, they'd tried it a couple years before and it hadn't worked- but he didn't have any other suggestions so he resigned himself to sitting by with Hermann and watched them try it. Before they could do anything, however, Hermann's double event took place.  
They lost Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon. 

\------

Pentecost sent Mako and Raleigh and the Hansens to the breach. 

The bomb deflected off. 

\------

This was wrong, Newt thought, this wasn't the way things were supposed to happen. They were gonna close the breach. He and Hermann and Mako and the Marshall and the Hansens and the Kardinovskys and the Wei triplets and Raleigh, they were gonna be rockstars. They weren't supposed to lose. They weren't supposed to sit in stunned silence as the light on Tendo's screen blinked that the bomb had done nothing. This wasn't how it was meant to end. 

Tendo took off his headset and set it on the control panel. The slight clatter seemed very loud to Newt's ears.

And then Raleigh's voice came through the speakers. "We uh... We got movement down here. One- no two- no, three category fives comin' through the breach."

"Get back up here immediately." Pentecost ordered. His face looked pinched. 

"Sorry sir, but with the others gone and all, we're the last line of defense. They're gonna keep coming you said, right Hermann? Exponentially more as time goes on? Well, we're not gonna make it long, but we sure as hell aren't going down without a fight." 

"Mako-"

"We have no other choice" she said. Pentecost nodded, blinking and standing straighter. 

Newt looked to Hermann, struggling to think of something to say that would communicate the idea he was looking for. 

"We did everything we could, Newton. You did everything you could. It just wasn't enough." He grimaced, inching closer as Raleigh and Mako began to shout through the comm.

"We got the first one, but another's headed your way. If you have anything left you can do, Marshall, now's a good time." There was a scream, whether from Raleigh or from Mako, Newt couldn't tell. He felt Hermann grip his hand. Tendo flinched as the dot on the screen that was Gipsy Danger flickered, then went out. Pentecost sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 

"Is there anything else we can do, sir?" Tendo asked. 

"We can self-destruct the dome. It won't be much, but it'll give the city warning and hopefully a few extra minutes." Minutes for what, Newt didn't ask. 

"Yes, sir." Tendo began the sequence. 

Newt turned to Hermann. "Herm-"

"How many times must I ask you not to call me that?" he snapped, his face white. He gripped Newt's hand tighter. "Don't let go." he almost-whispered, his eyes flickering between each of Newt's. Newt nodded. Something cold seized in his chest and he focused on Hermann's hand and the warmth, the solidity it provided. He could feel a tear escape and roll down his cheek but it was too late, there was nothing to be done. 

There was a blinding flash of light and a roar like thunder. Then nothing. 

Then Newt was standing in front of a mirror, staring at his own face with a panicked expression.


	2. And Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly did not expect to write any more of this fic. I expected to be over this pairing by the time I had time to write some more. But the "post a chapter as motivation to write another" method seems to have worked, because I couldn't stand the thought of leaving a lone chapter up on ao3. 
> 
> Anyway.

Newt blinked at his reflection, watching his eyebrows contract in confusion. Didn't they just explode? The dome had blown up. He should be dead. He should not, he thought, whirling to take in his surroundings, be standing in a bathroom. Unless there actually was some kind of afterlife. Newt had never believed in either heaven or hell but hey, he was somewhere now. 

He looked back into the mirror. He certainly looked younger than he had before the explosion. His hair was longer. He was wearing one of those short sleeved button up shirts that- wait. 

Newt raised his arms in front of the mirror and turned them so he could see all sides of them. Nothing. No greens, no yellows, no reds or purples or blues. His tattoos were gone. Guess this isn't heaven then, he frowned. What the hell had happened to him? 

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the notification. "Presentations begin in 1/2 hour. Seriously if you're not awake and dressed by now you're a dead man, Geiszler." Who would send him a text like- but it wasn't a text. Newt clicked on the little calendar symbol. It was a pretyped note, set to go off at 9:30 am on... what. Newt squinted down. Thursday the 27th of October, 2014. 

Newt shoved the phone back into his pocket and ran out of the bathroom, skidding a bit on the tile in his haste. He pushed the door open and didn't even flinch as it bounced off the wall. This building was familiar, so familiar and yes, this was where that conference had been held in 2014, the one where he'd been given the job at the domes, the one where he'd had to give that presentation on the of the toxicity of the kaiju blood. Newt looked around rapidly and continued to sprint forward. This was definitely that hotel. What the hell had happened to him? Was this his reward for a lifetime of honest scientific advancement and terror at his inability to prevent the end of civilization as he knew it? To be thrown back to- 

but what if he HAD been thrown back? What if he had travelled through time? 

What if he could do it all over again? 

Newt stopped walking abruptly as he rounded a corner. This was, apparently, exactly the wrong thing to do, as someone had collided with him and was now sprawled on the ground at his feet. 

"God, I'm- Hermann?!" Newt stared down at his lab mate, who was glaring up at him with a mixture of suspicion and annoyance. 

"And who exactly are you? Have we met before?" Hermann struggled to stand up but when Newt stuck out his hand to pull him to his feet he received a sharp swat with the cane and a glower. 

"Have we- Hermann, we worked together for ten years! Well, not really, we've been working together together for about three years- or is it four? I can't remember, something like that, but you've known me since..." since this conference, Newt finished mentally. He swallowed and blinked. Hermann didn't know him now. If he had really gone back in time, Hermann didn't know him anymore. Newt felt a twinge in his stomach at this thought, but before he could be bothered to wonder what exactly THAT was, Hermann was talking. 

"I can assure you, we have never met before. I doubt I would forget ten years of acquaintance with-" Hermann waved his cane in Newt's direction, sneering at his skinny jeans and shoes all over again. Newt wondered what he would have thought if the tattoos had come back in time with him. "In any case, is there some way I can be of assistance?"

"What?" Newt gaped. 

"Are you here for credit for a class- do you belong to one of the graduate teams watching the presentations? Do you require directions to the nearest club? Why are you here?" Hermann's voice did the thing Newt had grown to know meant he was trying very hard not to lose his patience. 

"Uh. I'm actually presenting later." Newt rubbed the back of his neck. Did Hermann really think- but wait, Newt was nineteen again. He WAS a student again. Oh god. He was gonna have to write that dissertation over again. UNLESS-

"I've gotta tell everyone. That's probably why I was sent back." Newt muttered. Of course. Some kind of force had caused him to go back in time to fix everything, to bring back all the knowledge he had about the kaiju and save the world. Newt nodded vigorously, wringing his hands. But wait, that was ridiculous. Newt had seen enough anime to know that never ended well. He was gonna have to find some other way than going up on stage and saying "hey so I've lived through this before and I know what's gonna happen". He ran his hands through his hair, conflicted. What the hell was he supposed to do then, just live the years over again and causally manipulate everything in a better direction? He looked up and started; he'd forgotten Hermann was there and the mathematician was now staring at him with something close to terror. 

"Oh, dude, I'm sorry. I uh, I'm a little out of it today. Late night, you know." He was pretty sure Hermann didn't know, Hermann had always been weirdly uptight about his sleep schedule, but what else was he supposed to say? And speaking of sleep, how did Newt know he wasn't dreaming all of this? Maybe he'd blink and wake up and it'd turn out that the last few days, the triple event, the explosion, and whatever THIS was, were all a bad dream and he'd be back in his bunk in the dome. Yeah. Maybe that as what was happening. 

"Yes. Well... good day to you, Mr..?"

"Dr Geiszler. Dr Newt Geiszler." Newt stuck out his hand, hoping to make some kind of positive impression to counteract the weirdness he'd just subjected Hermann to. Hermann shook his hand with a scrutinizing look on his face, probably thinking about the invitation he had to extend later in the day. Newt smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way and hurried off. If he WAS actually here he was gonna have to give a decade old presentation and he'd better find whatever notes he'd prepared for this because there was no way he could do this stone cold without veering off into "I'm from the future (or possibly dreaming this)" territory.

\------

Half an hour later Newt was hurrying back into the conference center, clutching a small stack of note cards he'd found in the hotel room he'd rented. It had taken him nearly twenty minutes to even remember where he'd been staying those ten years ago- where he was staying now, he reminded himself. Fortunately the notecards had been sitting in a stack on his bedside table. Thank god for small favors, because looking around that hotel room had yielded virtually no recognition from Newt. At first he'd taken this as confirmation that yes, he WAS dreaming, but upon further inspection it all started to come back to him, right down to the clothes he knew he'd find in the suitcase when he opened it up. It's amazing how many little things people forget over time, Newt thought. I wonder what else'll surprise me the second time around. 

Hermann certainly didn't. Newt had been thinking about this presentation he was gonna have to sit through and all he could recall from last time was that he'd been annoyed that anyone could be as shortsighted as Hermann had been. The years since had mellowed this impression; Hermann wasn't DUMB, he just didn't think about things in the way Newt would have done- but relistening to the man talk about the insignificance of understanding the kaiju and his focus on improving the Jaegers rubbed Newt the wrong way all over again. He found himself scribbling additions to the notecards with a pencil stub he'd found in his pocket. He added bits of information he'd learned in the last ten years- would learn in the next ten years- that branched off the blood toxicology report. 

When it was time for Newt to speak he hurried up on stage and gave his report in a rush. He skimmed over the original material and tried to segueway into the implications of the information that really he shouldn't have because he hadn't discovered it yet but it didn't matter anyway because people were very obviously not following what he was saying. Newt kept glancing down at the note cards nineteen year old him had written and wondering if it was possible he had ever been so poor at expressing material. Oh well, Newt thought, it didn't matter anyway. Either he was gonna wake up any second or he was gonna be recruited to work at the dome by Hermann. Either way he'd eventually get back to where he was supposed to be and could figure out what exactly had happened to him and if he could use it to his advantage to stop the war and close the breach. 

\------

As the months went by Newt was more and more sure that he wasn't dreaming or in some kind of afterlife, but that was pretty much all he WAS sure of. Tendo had come to pick him up at the airport, just like last time, and the other two biologists had been transferred leaving him with Angela Black in the basement lab, just like last time. Newt got the same shipments of specimens as last time, which was boring and also frustrating- if there was some kind of intent behind this "let's live the last ten years of your life over again!" (which Newt doubted, he was sure there was a scientific explanation, but he had no idea how he'd go about finding it so he decided to focus on the more immediate problem of "what the hell can I do differently this time?") then it meant that someone somewhere had thought he'd missed something. He had no idea what that "something" could be. 

\------

One day he tried to kind of casually bring it up to Angela as they worked in the lab. "Do you like sci-fi?"

She snorted over her beakers. "Newt, our LIVES are sci-fi. Why would I spend my free time caring about that stuff as well?"

"No reason, I just wondered if you knew anything about, I don't know, time travel, or paradoxes, or things like that." 

"Are you trying to make chit-chat? Because I won't lie, you're awful at that. Also I need to focus on this mixture." 

Newt shrugged. "Okay, I just thought-"

"If you want someone to talk Heinlein with, go pester Hermann Gottlieb. I heard he's secretly into that kind of stuff." Angela poured something from a graduated cylinder into a flask over a burner and corked it. She glanced up at Newt through her safety goggles, her expression softening. "I didn't mean to be short, it's just... we never talk, and then you pick the exact moment I need to be paying attention to my work to try and start a conversation." She cleared her throat. "If you wanna be friendly, we can go get dinner after we're finished?"

Newt's eye widened. "Uh, no, that's- that's fine. I- Never mind." He went back to his work. 

A few minutes later there was a small explosion and Angela was ushering him out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her and turning on the sprinklers. "Hopefully the chem spray will neutralize anything."

"Wait, WHAT? I didn't- I left the specimens uncovered!" Newt stared at the closed door in horror. "It'll be at least a month before the next attack." 

Angela stared, and Newt wracked his brains to remember when exactly Hermann had developed the predictive model, and if the fact that he knew this information would seem odd. Apparently it didn't, because all she said was "That is supposed to be a good thing in case you've forgotten, Dr 'I love the aliens that are destroying the world'."

"I don't- I don't LOVE them! I recognize how important understanding them is to ending this war!" Newt spluttered, feeling an angry flush creep up his face. This was obviously not something that was gonna be different from last time. People clearly were gonna continue to misinterpret his admiration and devotion to his work. 

"Whatever, Newt. Stay out of the lab until I get everything sorted, alright?" She sighed and hurried away. Newt could see her shaking her head and muttering as she went. 

\------

Newt yawned as he picked at his scrambled eggs. The mess was not, as a rule, one of his favorite places to be- too much stimuli first thing in the morning- but Angela had expressly forbade him from bringing food down to the lab until she got the situation figured out. It wouldn't surprise him if she wanted him to stay away for a couple of days, actually, and anyway the kaiju spleen was probably ruined so he had nothing to work with until Reckoner hit Hong Kong next month. Which, Newt thought, he should probably warn someone about later today. He scribbled a note in pen on his palm so he'd remember to see Pentecost about that. He almost didn't notice Hermann as he went past, carrying a tall mug with a teabag string hanging out of it. 

"Hermann!" he waved, gesturing to the length of empty bench across from him. Hermann scowled over the top of his mug, turning to survey the end of the table where Newt was sitting. After some kind of internal deliberation, he sat down across from Newt with a slight huff.

"I do believe I have asked you to refer to me as Dr Gottlieb." he groused, taking a sip of his tea and pursing his lips. 

"Yeah, well, I thought it would be more productive to call you by your first name." Newt said as he stuffed his earbuds into his shirt pocket. "It got you to sit down, anyway." 

Hermann inclined his head slightly. "It appears so. Was there something in particular that you wanted, Dr Geiszler?" 

"Well, first of all, for you to call me Newt, but actually I wanted to ask you something. How much do you know about time?" 

"What on earth do you mean by that?"

"Time. Like... I don't know, time travel." Newt tried to sound offhand.

Hermann leaned back, looking at the ceiling with a contemplative expression. "At speeds faster than light it would be entirely possible. The energy expenditure would be enormous to reach such a speed, however."

"So that's out. Any other ways it could be done?" 

"String theory predicts that there are partially wrapped compact cycles associated to extra spacetime dimensions so that-"

"Nope, not that either then. Isn't there one about wormholes or something?" 

Hermann looked back down at Newt, affronted. "Time travel via an Einstein-Rosen Bridge would require the extreme acceleration of one end of the bridge. The energy required to warp space would be even higher than in the speed of light example." 

"Okay, but like, how much energy are we talking here? Would like a nuclear bomb be enough?"

"I don't honestly know, I've never bothered to do the math." Hermann narrowed his eyes at Newt. "Where is this coming from? Shouldn't you be more worried about the state of you lab right now?" 

"Aww, I'm touched you know about that. Here I was thinking you kept your head in your own work and didn't care about the rest of us." Newt grinned at him.

"Yes, well... in fact I do have more important things to do than listen to your prattle. Good day, Dr Geiszler." Hermann slid off the bench and stalked away, but not before Newt could catch the faint pink tinge coloring his cheeks. Newt frowned to himself. How he was gonna convince Hermann to run those numbers, he had no idea. But he had time. He'd think of something.

\------

Pentecost's door was open when Newt went to see him. Mako was sitting cross-legged beside the fountain, taking apart a scaled down engine. It was strange to see her so young again, reverted to a girl of twelve and playing with models, when Newt could remember walking through LOCCENT and seeing her and Tendo rebuild a Jaeger though the glass. He knew how she was gonna grow up and that was weird to him. Knowing what was gonna happen was weird in general. Speaking of which...

"Hey, kiddo, where's the marshal? I gotta talk to him."

"He will return shortly." Mako stared at him for a moment. "You are one of the scientists in the lower level lab, yes?"

"Yeah, I study the kaiju." Newt sat down ungracefully, looking over her model with interest but non-comprehension. 

"Have you discovered any weakness yet?"

Newt opened his mouth to respond, but Pentecost walked in. Mako's eyes widened and she returned to her engine. 

"Dr Geiszler. I wasn't expecting to see you today." 

"Yeah, I gotta talk to you. There's gonna be an attack on Hong Kong in the next month." Newt said as he scrambled to his feet. Pentecost stared. Mako stared. Newt swallowed. 

"And how do you have this information?" Pentecost said at last. 

"I uh..." Newt hadn't actually planned what he was going to say. "I just... do." 

Pentecost stood up straighter, surveying him with a scrutinizing eye. Newt could feel beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck. After another minute of silent staring Newt cracked. "Look, can't you just trust me on this? Take whatever precautions you need to take on the chance that I'm right?" When Reckoner did hit they'd see he was right and he'd be able to warn them about all future attacks. 

"Have you been talking to Dr Gottlieb?" He leaned against his desk, narrowing his eyes at Newt.

Newt blinked. "What? Wait- what?" What did Hermann have to do with this? Hermann had nothing to do with this. 

"Dr Gottlieb has been planning some kind of predictive model. I thought perhaps he had gotten it to a point where he thought it would yield something useful."

Oh right, Hermann was in the early stages of developing those algorithms. Newt knew that. Pentecost probably thought it was bull right now- nobody had started to take either of them SERIOUSLY until much later in the war, and even then, most of their work had been met with eye rolls or awkward silences. But yeah, this was as good an excuse as any. 

"Yeah, he thinks it might be promising. Well, not PROMISING, I mean a giant alien's gonna attack Hong Kong in the next month, but-"

"And why hasn't Dr Gottlieb come to see me himself?" Pentecost began to shuffle through a stack of papers and Newt relaxed. He bought it. Or at least he bought it enough that he was now not giving Newt his full "I can see into your soul and I know you are lying" attention. 

"He's not confident that the model is actually accurate but, you know, better safe than sorry." Newt fibbed. 

"Well. We'll see won't we, Dr Geiszler. Good day to you." Pentecost scribbled something on his paperwork. Newt was evidently dismissed. With another astonished glance at little Mako, Newt saw himself out of the office. 

It wasn't until he was showering at the end of the day that it occurred to him that he was gonna have to come up with some kind of explanation to Hermann when Pentecost came around to thank him for his model's success. Newt's stomach churned. He had no idea how far along Hermann's project actually was and he didn't like the idea of having to explain to the mathematician where he got the knowledge about the attacks. 

Ah well. Worry about that tomorrow, Newt told himself. 

But tomorrow brought a different slew of problems: the lab's kaiju samples were just salvageable but Angela's experiments were not. Newt went right back to work, delighted. Angela sulked over her desk for a couple of hours before leaving for lunch. 

The next day Newt got a communique saying a shipment of specimens were being sent in from Vladivostok, which was news to Newt; he had been so sure that the next specimens he'd gotten last time were the fallout from Reckoner. But did it really matter where they'd come from? The point was he didn't have to wait for new material. He dove back into his work. 

\------

A week before the attack Newt noticed that Angela had been absent for a couple of days. Maybe she'd taken a vacation? But wait- hadn't she left the first time around? Yeah, because Pentecost had sent him on R&R for not noticing. Which meant either Hermann had been popping down to spy on him and he hadn't noticed or Hermann would start popping down to spy on him in the next week or so. Had it been before or after the Hong Kong attack? Newt couldn't remember. He thought after. Yeah, because he'd gotten the Yamarashi tattoo on that trip and Yamarashi was like a year after Reckoner. But that meant Angela had been gone for a year the first time and Newt hadn't noticed. That seemed far-fetched to Newt. He was a more observant person than that, wasn't he? Wasn't he?

\------

As Recokner inched closer Newt found himself missing that Yamarashi tattoo. His arm looked empty with nothing on it. It was strange- it hadn't bother him in the two years leading up to now, but as the first of the attacks that he could do something about approached, Newt's skin itched with the absence of ink. He vowed that, if everything went according to plan, he would make Reckoner a tattoo as well, and as soon as possible. 

Three days before the attack Newt was called up to Pentecost's office. When he walked through the door he saw Hermann seated before the desk, his expression unreadable. What the hell was- shit. It had completely slipped Newt's mind to talk to Hermann about the model story. 

Newt sat down in the chair beside him. He felt like a kid in the principle's office as Pentecost took a seat across the desk and looked from one to the other. 

"Imagine my surprise when I went to see Dr Gottlieb this morning and learned that he and his team were working on a self-correcting upgrade for the neural interface and not an attack prediction model, as you had led me to believe." Pentecost said. Newt swallowed. "I have been scouring my brain trying to think of some reason you would make up a lie as huge as a kaiju attack. So far I have come up with nothing. Now, would you care to explain yourself before I have you kicked out on your ass, or would you prefer to skip that part?" Pentecost's voice rose to a shout. 

Newt determinedly didn't flinch. "It's not a lie, at least not the attack part. Reckoner is coming, it'll be here in three days." 

Pentecost took a deep breath, clenching his fists on the desk. "Very well. Would you care to enlighten me as to how you came across this information, if it wasn't through Dr Gottlieb's model and you are, in fact, telling the truth?" A vein was popping in the marshal's neck. Newt took a deep breath and his brain shut down. He couldn't tell the truth, they'd never believe him. But it was looking like he'd have to take his chances; he was straining to come up with something, anything, but his mind was blank. It was the truth or nothing. He opened his mouth and was cut off by Hermann. 

"In fact he did get it from my model, sir. It is in very early stages, I have told him several times that I doubt the reliability to be higher than fifty percent, but-"

"You're telling me there's a fifty percent chance the next attack WILL be in three days?"

Hermann glanced at Newt. "I would say that is a high probability." 

Pentecost stood up and pounded the comm button on the wall. "Mr Choi, I need you up here immediately." He looked at Newt and Hermann. "Dismissed." 

Hermann saluted as he stood up. Newt followed him out of the room. They walked in silence for several minutes before Newt spoke up.

"Why'd you do that? Why'd you lie for me?"

Hermann huffed air through his nose, and his grip on his cane shook. He stopped walking abruptly and rounded on Newt. 

"How did you know about the prediction model?" 

"You mean I was right? There really IS a fifty percent chance that the next attack will be in the next three days?"

"No, I pulled those numbers from thin air so the marshal wouldn't have you sent away from the dome." Hermann took a deep breath. "But you shouldn't know about the prediction model in general. I haven't told anybody about that project. I haven't even been keeping digital records of it. The only way you could know about it is if you'd been reading my private notebooks. And yet you not only know about my pet project, which I would most certainly have revealed to the marshal before now if I had even the slightest confidence that I had enough data to make accurate predictions, but you claim to know something you couldn't possibly know and are willing to risk your future for it. I don't believe you would fabricate a lie this big. You must be telling the truth, although I don't know how that is possible either." 

Newt nodded. "Okay. I get it."

"Then please explain it to me, because I don't." Hermann snapped. 

"It's... you're not gonna believe me." 

"Try me." Hermann growled, stepping closer. Newt inched away and felt his lower back collide with the pipes lining the corridor. 

"Okay! I uh... Oh god, this is gonna sound crazy, Hermann-"

"Dr Geiszler-" Hermann's tone was warning.

"I travelled back in time. I've lived through this before and I remember the attack. You got your model up and running eventually and it was really really accurate, that's how I know about it. I've done this all before." Newt took a breath. "I-"

Hermann smacked him across the face. Newt flinched backwards against the wall, clutching at his cheek. 

"What the hell-"

"Don't speak." Hermann's tone was disgusted. "If you must lie at least come up with something believable." Hermann whirled around and headed away, his shoulders squared and his arm swinging rigidly. His words echoed over the ringing in Newt's ear. 

\------

When Reckoner did hit there were two Jaegers waiting for it. They were able to take it down, but not before it had destroyed a section of the city. The population had been evacuated the day before, however, and there were no casualties at all. Newt joined in the party that evening thinking of the tattoo he was gonna get later in the week, and trying NOT to think about Hermann and the prediction model and the mess he'd gotten himself into.

\------

As Newt was shutting down all the lab equipment for the night Hermann came in, looking very uncomfortable. 

"I don't know how you did that but the marshal expects me to do it again. He thinks that my model- my THEORETICAL, EARLY-DEVELOPMENT-STAGE MODEL, will be able to predict the next Jaeger attacks. So tell me. How much time do I have to turn this into a working program?" Hermann sighed, sinking onto the old couch in the corner of the lab. 

"Dude, you don't even need to worry, Yamarashi won't be here for like, fifteen months. You've got so much time." Newt grinned. 

"Your levity is not appreciated!" Hermann snapped, standing back up and heading towards Newt. "That being said, I... apologize for my earlier behavior. It was rash and unjust of me."

"Hey, it's cool. I wouldn't have believed me either." Newt grinned. Hermann didn't return the expression. 

"I confess I still do not believe you, despite the fact that I also do not believe you are a dishonest man. I didn't think you would lie about the attack, and now I KNOW you did not lie about the attack, and yet I cannot make myself believe you travelled back in time." 

"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna try to convince you. It does sound ridiculous, and to be honest sometime I'm not even sure this isn't some fucked up dream I'm having." Newt shrugged, looking around for his jacket and picking it up off the floor in the corner. He shook it and watched a clump of dust float to the ground. "I guess we'll see, won't we?"

"Quite. Good night, Dr Geiszler." Hermann left the lab. 

\------

Newt didn't see much of Hermann for the next couple of months. He got that tattoo, which got some weird looks from people but whatever, Newt was used to it after so many years. He got enough specimens off of Reckoner, although not as many as he would have liked; there was some kind of black market springing up in Hong Kong, growing around the area where the kaiju had fallen. 

And then one day Hermann came down to see Newt in his lab again. He stood hesitantly in the doorway, leaning on his cane and looking around at everything but Newt. 

"Hermann! Haven't seen you in a couple of weeks."

"It's been closer to several months, actually." 

"What? No, can't be. It's what, May?"

"It's October, Newton." Hermann said softly, stepping further into the lab. Newt set down the circular saw he'd been using to cut through skin plates and stared at him. 

"It can't be October." 

"I assure you, it is. The marshal sent me down here to check on you, actually, as nobody's seen you for nearly a week now." 

Newt's stomach turned over. This was that week. He'd told himself he was gonna remember and try to avoid it, but-

"I've been down here twice in the last three days. You have failed to notice both times. I have recommended to the marshal that you take a week of leave for you own health." He clenched his jaw and stared at Newt.

"Yeah yeah, I thought as much. I hoped this wouldn't happen this time around but I guess I'm a creature of habit." Newt started the long process of storing the specimens for when he returned. Hermann blinked and frowned. 

"I expected you to put up more of a fight."

"Like I said, I was kind of expecting this."

"Then why would you not take measures to prevent yourself reaching a point where this leave is necessary?"

"Cause I gotta figure out what I missed the first time and save the world?"

Hermann nodded and shuffled his foot along the ground, looking down. "Ah. Of course."

"Still don't believe me?"

"I'm beginning to consider the possibility. The model is coming along nicely, by the way. It should begin to spit out numbers in the next day or so." He smiled very slightly. 

"What's today's date?" Newt asked. 

"The ninth of October."

"Just in time, then. The next attack'll be on the sixteenth."

\------

It WAS just in time; as Newt was boarding a plane the next week he heard the news that the Becket brothers had taken down Yamarashi in Los Angeles. Newt smiled to himself, running his hand up his left arm. 

\------

The elevator doors were just staring to close when Hermann squeezed in, watching Newt with an odd expression. 

"What's up, Hermann?"

"The sixteenth, you said." 

"And I was right." 

"Indeed. And my model was off by two days."

"Before or after?"

"After." 

Newt frowned, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall of the elevator. "I don't know what to tell you. You get it right eventually, if that's any comfort."

"No, it isn't. I should have it right now. YOU have it right now, and you aren't even working on it." A faint blush was spreading up Hermann's neck and ears. He glanced at Newt's crossed arms and then up at the ceiling. 

"Look, it's not something to be ashamed of. Just figure out what the problem is and fix it. I know because I've lived through this before, not because I've got some kind of secret math genius I'm hiding from you."

"That's not the point, I should have got it right." Hermann was now definitely red, and pointedly avoiding looking at Newt. 

"Yeah, well, don't be embarrassed, you're still the smartest person in this dome, Herms." Newt touched his shoulder, trying to be reassuring, but Hermann jumped and flinched away from him. 

"I hope you enjoyed your leave. Good day." Hermann bashed the button for the current level and practically sprinted out of the elevator onto the second floor.

Newt watched him go, frowning. That... had been weird. Even for Hermann, that had been weird. Newt was sure Hermann had been blushing through the entire conversation and they'd talked about Hermann being wrong before and it had never brought out that kind of reaction. Which meant that it wasn't something they were talking about, and the only thing different about either of them was Newt's tattoos. Why would Hermann blush at Newt's tattoos? It made no logical sense. Newt shook his head and decided to ask Tendo about it the next time he saw him- Tendo got people, he'd understand it. In the mean time Newt had lymph nodes to dissect. 

\------

Newt bumped into Tendo in the hallway later that evening and stopped him with a tap to the back.

"Tendo, hey, I gotta ask you something."

"Sure, man, what's up? Oh, by the way, I know a lot of people are givin' you crap about the tats but I think they look awesome. Just FYI. Don't listen to the haters."

"Actually that's kind of what I wanted to ask you about."

"The haters?"

"The tattoos." Newt recounted the conversation with Hermann. "-and then he kind of ran away- well, not RAN, but you know what I mean- and I don't get it, like I could understand him being uncomfortable or annoyed by them but embarrassed isn't really a thing that makes sense in context. So maybe I misread the situation or something, I don't know, I'm not so great with this kind of- why are you laughing?"

Tendo had covered his mouth with his hand but now let it drop, throwing back his head. After a minute he wiped at the corners of his eyes and took a deep breath. "Sorry, brother, but it's just hard for me to understand how someone so smart can be so clueless. Hermann loves your tattoos. Maybe a little too much, or at least he thinks so. He thinks they're hot."

Newt raised his eyebrows. "What? Wait, no- WHAT? That doesn't make any sense." 

"Geez, how old are you? It's the only thing that DOES make sense. You say he kept looking at your arms and that he went red with no real connection to the conversation? He was checking you out. Your ink turns him on. He was probably trying to think of the best way to jump you, got self-conscious, and blushed."

"So Hermann... is attracted to me?"

Tendo whistled. "This isn't really a conversation I have time to have with you right now but yeah. Suffice it to say that Hermann is DEFINITELY attracted to you." Tendo clapped Newt on the shoulder and started to stroll away, still chuckling and leaving Newt to mull over the whole bizarre incident.

Late that night as Newt was tossing and turning, trying to resist the impulse to just give up on sleep and go back to the lab, it struck him that he could use this to his advantage. If Hermann WAS attracted to him he could use it to get Hermann to run those equations for him. He still hadn't given up on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory about this whole time-travel thing. He could seduce Hermann if he wanted to- it would be difficult but he knew just enough about Hermann that it might work. The thought made Newt feel sick to his stomach. He fell into an uneasy sleep punctured by dreams of Hermann, his cheeks pink below those old maid's glasses and his lips slightly parted. When he woke up the next morning he decided that it didn't matter, he wouldn't use this to get his way no matter how bad things got because there were some lines you just didn't cross and emotional manipulation was one of them. 

\------

Years went by. Mako went off to the academy and Pentecost and Tendo went to Anchorage. Newt and Hermann went to each other's labs with increasing regularity, chatting and sometimes arguing about which of their lines of research was more important, about Newt's reports (as always), about sci-fi if there was time to talk about "frivolous things" as Hermann put it. One evening found them sitting in the mess hunched over a book of Hermann's and pointing at key words and phrases. 

"-and all I'M saying is that if they've managed to harness the nuclear energy inside a sun, Herms, power isn't a problem."

"Oh please, don't pretend you know anything about physics, Newton, you'll only embarrass yourself." Hermann snapped gleefully. "The power requirements it would take to open a wormhole-"

Newt saw an opportunity and pounced. "You don't actually know what those requirements are, do you? I seem to remember having a conversation like this before. You've never bothered to run the numbers for that, you flat out told me."

"If I recall correctly, I told you I had never run the numbers for the energy expenditure required for TIME TRAVEL via wormholes." 

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. You don't actually know, is the point." 

Hermann stood up, grabbing his book off the table. "If you're so sure of yourself, I'll go do the math right now and get back to you in the morning." 

"See you tomorrow, Hermann!" Newt called after him, smiling as he finished his pie. 

\------

Hermann flopped onto the bench beside Newt the next morning, dark circles under his eyes and a scowl on his face. He pulled the nearest coffeepot towards him and poured some into his tall tea mug. Newt watched with satisfaction. "So less than the sun, then?"

"Much less. The energy required to open a wormhole would be equal to 1,200,000 tons of TNT."

"And to time travel through a wormhole?"

"Around 10,000,000 tons. Both numbers are far less than the nuclear energy of the sun."

"Damn, I should have bet money on this." Newt joked. "How would you produce that much energy?"

"Oh, I don't know. There's no bomb that can produce that much energy that I am aware of, but then, we were discussing science fiction." Hermann glanced at Newt, trying to stifle a yawn. "You should be finishing that report on the bone marrow samples. Greer wants that today."

Newt got up, grumbling. "Fine. See you later." Hermann grunted in response, staring down into his coffee with a distrustful eye. 

\------

That evening brought news of the closing of the Jaeger program and the erecting of the wall. Newt finished up in the lab, intending to go see Hermann, but Hermann found his way down to Newt before he could leave. He collapsed on the couch, rubbing his eyes. Newt sat down beside him, unsure of what exactly to do. 

"I just can't believe it. I always knew that the politicians would do as they damn well pleased, discarding common sense and the well-being of society, but never did I suspect-" Hermann's head jerked up to look at Newt. "You knew this was going to happen though, didn't you."

Newt nodded, placing a tentative hand on Hermann's back. "And I knew you were gonna... well, I know about your father." 

Hermann covered his face with his hands, leaning on his knees. "I'm..." his voice, muffled already, faded off. 

"I know. I always thought maybe I should have tried to prevent this. But I'm like, 93% sure that the thing I actually have to figure out how to do is close the Breach."

Hermann looked up at him. His eyes were red. "How did you do it last time?"

Newt blinked. "I didn't. God, have I never told you this?"

"It's only in the last few minutes that I've started to believe that you actually did do this already. So no, we haven't talked about this before." 

"Oh." Hermann believed him now. Hermann BELIEVED him. The thought made Newt's stomach flutter weirdly. He started to talk, rubbing circles into Hermann's back. 

\------

"-so the dome self-destructed and I was back in that hotel, you know, where I ran into you and knocked you down." 

Hermann stared for a moment. "Do you have any idea what you plan to do differently this time?"

"I'm not sure what I CAN do, but I've been working on a theory about the kaiju. Everything has a weakness, you know? And I think theirs might be their brains. They've got two brains, right? But we only know what the secondary brains do. The primary brains, the ones actually in their skulls, nobody's ever looked at. I think that's the key. I gotta figure out how to get a look at a primary brain."

Hermann nodded slowly. "And you are basing this assumption on...?" 

"Uh, the fact that I don't have anything else to go on at this point?"

Hermann snorted. "Wonderful."

"Hey, don't be like that. We got like ten months left, I'll figure it out." 

Hermann leaned against him, tucking his legs up below him on the couch. Newt's eyes widened as Hermann rested his head against Newt's chest. "I'm sure you will." he murmured. "But for now..."

"You're moving your stuff into k-science tomorrow, right?"

Newt felt Hermann sigh. "Do stop thinking about the future for a while, I've had enough." Which made sense, Newt thought. Hermann had spent the day running around fielding reports to Greer and reassuring his labmates that everything would be alright despite the overwhelming evidence that said the world was going to end, only to be assaulted with Newt's story about time travel at the end of the day. All while sleep-deprived because of that dumb bomb question. 

"I'm sorry." Newt whispered, starting to run his fingers through Hermann's badly-cut hair. 

Hermann hummed in response, moving his head very slightly into Newt's touch. His breathing was starting to even out, and Newt knew he was probably gonna be uncomfortable sleeping here but he couldn't bring himself to nudge him off. Just a few minutes longer, then he'd walk Hermann back to his room and head for bed himself. Just a few more minutes. 

Newt woke up the next morning to Hermann sprawled out on the couch, his head in Newt's lap and one hand curled on his knee. Newt felt something push against his chest, something filling him like soup or coffee and making him feel warm and comfortable despite the fact that his legs were pins and needles and his neck was stiff. He looked down at Hermann fondly for a moment before he was startled by a loud rap on the door.

"Dr Geiszler? Dr Gottlieb's equipment is here."

"Hermann!" Newt hissed. Hermann sat up abruptly, his hands flying to his glasses chain and pushing them onto his nose. 

"Could you give me a hand, Doctor?" Newt jumped up and hurried to the door, which he opened and helped one of the lab techs wheel a chalkboard into the room. 

\------

Newt much preferred these last few months to the last few months the first time through. He and Hermann still bickered and shouted, but it was good-natured and genuine rather than the pointless fighting Newt remembered. They spent far too much time in the lab, Newt desperately testing out techniques of drilling through kaiju bone while he waited for a skull to become available. Hermann ran his algorithms and reported the frequency of attacks and tweaked the code for the Jaegers when necessary. Newt had never been happier, which he found strange. The world was ending, and he was becoming more and more sure that he wasn't gonna come up with a way of getting to the primary brain in time. 

Then it was the end again. Newt tried and failed to come up with something to stop the Kaidanovskys and the Wei Tang Triplets from being killed. They couldn't get their hands on a skull. Things progressed exactly as they had the first time, with the only difference being that this time, when the bomb didn't go through and Pentecost gave the order to self-destruct, Newt and Hermann were clutching each other for dear life and Newt was wondering what had happened to make this man so important to him. 

Newt's last thought before everything went white was "please let me get another chance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psst. Want to see me ramble about Newmann? Have headcanons you want to share? Ideas for AUs you want to discuss? I run the newmannheadcanons blog over on Tumblr now --> http://newmannheadcanons.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> Come chat with me :) 
> 
> (Oh, and if anybody can tell me how to format stuff so that I can get things to italicize, that'd be great. Like it's not pressing, and as I've already started just capitalizing them I'll probs continue to do so for the remainder of this story, but just like... as future reference.)
> 
> I cannot figure out how to make that end note from the first chapter stay with the first chapter??? It's below this end not now??? 
> 
> Whatever. Ignore the note below this.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooo... That's that. The majority of the stuff that happens from here on out will be variations on this initial loop. If there's something you were expecting to happen that didn't happen that DOESN'T take place in the actual movie, there is a good chance that I have discarded that bit of the backstory. Also, there will be even more liberties taken as I move forward in writing. I wish I could say sorry for butchering the extended canon but to be honest I don't like that there's an extended canon. Also I'm having way too much fun writing this to regret anything. 
> 
> If by some chance you wanna come talk to me about anything my url on Tumblr is also myfavoriteismike.


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